Massacre continues on Dalal Street in morning session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to witness bloodbath in morning deals amid across-the-board selling and weak global cues. Sentiments also remained dampened as liquidity in the banking system has slipped into a deficit for the first time in three weeks, prompting banks to borrow the largest quantum of funds from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in around a month and a half. Traders overlooked Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that scheduled commercial banks have written off loans amounting to Rs 10,09,511 crore in the last five financial years and the process of recovery of dues from the borrowers continues.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading lower on worries about a global recession and an increase in COVID-19 infections in China, which have tempered hope for easing stringent pandemic restrictions. Back home, steel industry stocks were trading lower despite Steel Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia’s statement that India's steel production has reached a historic level of 120 million tonnes per year making it the world's second-largest producer of Steel. He said India intends to double its steel production to 300 million tonnes per annum by 2030.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 61185.16, down by 621.03 points or 1.00% after trading in a range of 61131.26 and 61612.73. There were 2 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.84%, while Small cap index was down by 0.44%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 1.64%, Telecom down by 1.59%, Realty down by 1.29%, TECK down by 1.14% and Utilities down by 1.14%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 0.23% and Ultratech Cement up by 0.02%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.95%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.89%, Power Grid Corp down by 1.83%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.78% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.75% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in its latest data has said India's domestic passenger traffic rose 11.06 per cent to 116 lakh in November 2022 over the year-ago period. In November 2021, the air passenger traffic stood at 105.16 lakh. After being severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the country's civil aviation sector is on the recovery path and in recent days, daily domestic air traffic on an average is more than 4 lakh.

Further, it stated in November, no-frills carrier IndiGo carried more than half (55.7 per cent) of the total domestic traffic at 65.01 lakh passengers, followed by Vistara at 9.3 per cent. The latter carried 10.87 lakh passengers. Air India's market share in November touched 9.1 per cent, followed by AirAsia India (7.6 per cent), Go First and SpiceJet (both at 7.5 per cent).

Besides, it mentioned SpiceJet recorded the highest load factor at 92 per cent in November, while IndiGo regained back the top position in on-time performance with an average 92 per cent of its flights departing or arriving on time from four key airports-Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18232.10, down by 188.35 points or 1.02% after trading in a range of 18210.30 and 18355.20. There were 2 stocks advancing against 48 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Enterprises up by 0.30% and Axis Bank up by 0.29%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 2.91%, SBI Life Insurance down by 1.87%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.86%, UPL down by 1.84% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.83% were the top losers.

All Asian markets are trading lower; Nikkei 225 slipped 678.32 points or 2.49% to 26,559.32, Hang Seng decreased 262.85 points or 1.36% to 19,089.96, Taiwan Weighted dropped 248.83 points or 1.72% to 14,184.49, Shanghai Composite declined 19.79 points or 0.64% to 3,087.33, Jakarta Composite lost 50.65 points or 0.75% to 6,729.05, KOSPI fell 16.75 points or 0.71% to 2,335.42 and Straits Times trembled 11.34 points or 0.35% to 3,245.27.